The Kindle Touch is Not Dead

Here's a blog post I never expected to write. Remember last Fall when Amazon retired the Kindle Touch shortly after releasing the Kindle Paperwhite?It turns out they didn't, quite. It's still in stock on the Amazon website.A reader tipped me to this story yesterday. It's not clear when it happened, but Amazon is selling the Kindle Touch again. It's listed for $99 (SO + Wifi), or $20 less than the Kindle Paperwhite. Amazon is also offering it without the special offers, though that model costs $40 more. If you do a little digging you will also find the 3g+SO model as a refurb for $129.

The price for the Wifi model, coincidentally, is exactly the same as what it was before the Kindle Touch was discontinued for the first time. That suggests that Amazon is seeing enough demand for this year-old ereader that they are continuing to have new ones made; they're not just closing out old stock. But I also doubt that Amazon is selling all that many; this model is not listed with the others and can only be found via a search.

For $20 off the price of the KPW, this ereader loses the frontlight and HD screen, but it gains audio, TTS, Whispersync for voice, and you also gain an extra 2GB more storage than the KPW.

Now that the Kindle Touch supports digital comics, the extra storage is a big plus. Add in the audio ability and you have a pretty good trade off for the frontlight and HD screen.

I have never been all that much in love with the HD screen, and the frontlight doesn't impress me either (it's too uneven). So if I were buying a new Kindle today I would seriously take a look at the Kindle Touch.

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Nate Hoffelder is the founder and editor of The Digital Reader:"I've been into reading ebooks since forever, but I only got my first ereader in July 2007. Everything quickly spiraled out of control from there. Before I started this blog in January 2010 I covered ebooks, ebook readers, and digital publishing for about 2 years as a part of MobileRead Forums. It's a great community, and being a member is a joy. But I thought I could make something out of how I covered the news for MobileRead, so I started this blog."

5 Comments on The Kindle Touch is Not Dead

Our source (Tom) is an explorer extraordinare. Usually the last kid on the block to post anything, I actually posted details at 8am that day. But while I had watched the Int’l page, which for months had a box for you to sign up to be notified when it might become available again, the US page had it as GONE and available only used, for months. No ordering or sign-ups possible on the page.

So, they put it BACK into production in the U.S. and Int’l shows it now as unavailable outside the U.S., at least currently.

My records showed $89 pricing earlier but you know what? All those rumors about Asian sources reporting Amazon’s production of a $99 Kindle Fire? And then Amazon denying it immediately? It may have been this device, which IS $99. It could be that production is slow, so they’re not announcing it in a way that would cause a lot of ordering.

I actually think this is more the result of contract negotiations they’ve had quite seriously in the past with entities like the State Dept (so close that a conference with SOS Hillary was scheduled at the time but was called off when there were protests about it not being ready for those requiring assisted navigation). That was postponed for re-thinking, but it did require Text-to-Speech, general audio.

They also reqquired a built-in light and that’s when we took the coming of the Paperwhite seriously.

Amazon had trouble for months with sufficient production volumes for the Paperwhite, so maybe this will take the pressure off, but I would really like them to add a Paperwhite with audio and a bit more space as an option in the lineup. MY Paperwhite started out sort of blotchy with pastel colored areas in very dim light, but after time, it’s all a non-glarey white unless a room is 100% darkened and is a real joy to read at any time w/o requiring I add a light or lighted cover to it. I have my settings at 12 (and at most, 14) day or night.